Catman1975

I decided to focus my efforts on growing my trade business.

In the trading post you have two features:

1) I am looking for:
2) I offer:

Then you can choose building materials or any of the luxury items and a search radius (assuming your trade port is big enough to trade outside a one island radius).

I am looking for:

These are items that everyone has up for sale and is fairly self explanatory. If you want something simply click the drop down arrow, select your item and click Find Bargain.

If you find your item for a price you are willing to accept, simply click on the Trade Icon.

In the next window you can select the maximum price you are willing to pay for an item. I personally have not had any luck attempting to offer less than the asking price for any items. Then put in your quantity and click on Buy Goods. Now the ships have to travel to the destination, the goods are not bought until they reach the island, so the downside to having a large trading post is that your ships have a long travel time and may miss out on any really cheap goods you find.


Now the I offer is a section a few of my fellow 8th members had not looked at too closely when I started telling of some of my successes

These are items other towns are willing to purchase luxury goods at and the price they are willing to pay for said items.

The search feature works the same as the "I am looking for" feature. Most of the searches you see in here are people looking for items at an absurdly low price. 1,000 wood for 1g, 400 marble for 5g, etc. but once the towns around you start to develop the offers become more reasonable and if you have some excess inventory to sell this could be the place to go.

Also you can contact the person looking to buy the goods through diplomacy and see if you can also work out a trade if you are needing a good and the prices of what you need are too high in your area.



Advanced trading:

Once you get your trading post up a few levels, you can start looking at trading for profit.

I always go through and look to see what prices good are selling for in my area. Typically they are 20-30g per item, but every now and then I will see an items pop up for 5-10g, I immediately switch to the "I offer" section to see what people are willing to pay for that same item. As I said before usually it's a very low 1-5g price, but if I see someone selling it for 5g and someone willing to pay 10g for the same item, I'll send a ship out to see if I can get the items for 5g. About half of the time the island is too far away and my ships get there too late to buy the item, but if my ship picks it up I go back into the "I offer" section and ship out (assuming I have it in inventory and don't have to wait for my trade ship to get back) the goods to their island to try and make the deal.

This works because a lot of the smaller trading posts can not see the deals that may be just out of their reach. I starting doing this around a level 3 or 5 trading post, currently I'm upgrading to level 7.

Best deal to date: I bought 100 wood at 1g each and sold it for 10g each. The person selling the wood apparently was trying to put in a price of 100 because he immediately listed another 400 wood at 1g and I sent two ships to pick it up, but by the time they got there he had changed the price to 99g per pc.




NOTE: It is easy to tie up a lot of tradeships doing this so make sure you keep track of how many ships you have out and leave some in town if you need to go pillaging or transport goods between your colonies.

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Catman is batsh*t insane and all of his posts should be read with extreme scrutiny and disdain. If at any time you become compelled to relate or agree with any post by Catman, you should seek immediate, professional, psychiatric counseling. His rare form of psychosis is highly contagious and can be caught even through the intertubes. Catman recommends 1-800-OMGIMNUTS, he swears by (at) them.

KillDaddy

excellent post Catman.

I'm really getting into local trade at the moment (mainly cause I'm not able to trade afar yet)

I made 1200g on some Sulfur, then went looking to buy some Marble. Lowest price close to me is 30g each. I put up some "I'm looking for" items for Wine, Marble and Crystal at 10g a piece. I know that's a low price, but hey. Today I get on and someone who didn't have an offer up filled my Crystal need. Got 60 pieces for 600g. Looked at the current sale price of people who are offering locally and they are charging 50g a piece. Ridiculous.

My current strategy is to sell my renewable resource (Sulfur) for 15g a piece and sell excess of what I have to trade for at 20-30g max.

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UnDeaD77

Last few days I've been very competitive in the market, for selling my sulfur. I see somenoe who puts theirs at 18g, I'll set my to 16g each. If I see someone selling my luxury item for cheaper than I'll ever sell it, I'll buy them out, and turn around and sell it for more. Other day I bought sulfur for 9g or 10g each, and sold it for 15g each.

Best deal to date, buying 1,000 marble for 2g each.

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ikonic

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS buy luxury goods if they are offered for 8g or less. The seller would have made more if his luxury gatherers were citizens.

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KillDaddy

I thought about undercutting the one guy who was selling the Crystal for 50g per piece. Then I spent all but 10 of my Crystal on upgrading my academy. That's one of my top priorities.

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UnDeaD77

Yeah, I'll never buy any luxury resource for more than 20g each.

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Turbinator

wine, crystal and marble are luxury res right?

wood is generic resource right?

which category does sulfur fit into?

PS. when do I get trading post?
I need to upgrade town hall to a certain level? currently at level 1, and I'll need marble at level 3 I think.
Where would I get that if I cant trade resources?

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Turbinator

I need to research wealth for trading posts, got it.

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KillDaddy

Sulfur is a luxury as well.

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Turbinator

yep got it.

Could anyone ship me 30 crystal :P for 400g? How does that work exactly, I don't have wealth researched yet, so no trade posts.

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ikonic

You can only trade goods for gold if you have a trading post. The trading post has a very limited trading radius (1 island tile at level 1), you increase detection radius at every Odd upgrade level (level 3 would give you a 2 tile detect radius).

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Turbinator

rgr. ty



KillDaddy shipped me 30 crystal already, so nm about crystal.

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